History Is Written by the Monsters

As creatures from Greek mythology come roaring back in 'Clash of the Titans,' let's look at our favorite movie monsters from folklore and legend

By Don Kaye
Special to MSN Movies

"Release the kraken!" Every time Liam Neeson utters those words in the trailers and commercials for the new remake of "Clash of the Titans," we feel a little giddy. Like many people, our childhood years were filled with wonder at the amazing and terrifying beasts visualized in the movies of pioneering stop-motion animation master Ray Harryhausen, who studied under "King Kong" creator Willis O'Brien and brought his own indelible images to movies like "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms" and "20 Million Miles to Earth."

But it was Harryhausen's string of movies based on ancient legends, "The 7th Voyage of Sinbad" and "Jason and the Argonauts" among them, that truly captured the imagination. Some of the effects may look a little dated now, but sequences involving dragons, one-eyed monsters, centaurs, winged horses, and giant walking statues are not only seared into the history of cinema, but they also paved the way for today's fantasy blockbusters. Filmmakers from Peter Jackson to Guillermo del Toro all acknowledge their debt to Harryhausen's work.

Harryhausen is still with us but long retired, and his final movie, 1981's "Clash of the Titans," gets a highly anticipated, big-budget (and 3-D!) remake on April 2, in which Sam Worthington will battle oversized scorpions, a wicked Gorgon, his own father (Neeson's Zeus) and, of course, that legendary kraken. It's been awhile since we've seen many of these mythological monstrosities on the screen, so here's a look back at the fearsome and fabled creatures that Harryhausen and others have given us. Release the kraken!

('Clash of the Titans'/Warner Bros.)